1. Technical Field
The present invention is generally directed to an improved data processing system. More specifically, the present invention is directed to an improved data processing system and method for routing content to dynamically determined groups of reviewers. In a preferred embodiment, the present invention is directed to a system and method for matching and subsequent routing of content and/or electronic forms requiring review and approval to dynamically formed groups of people with a set of attributes (skills, location, organization affiliation, expertise) that relates to the content/electronic forms.
2. Description of Related Art
Enterprises that engage in intellectual property activities often employ invention disclosure review teams as a filtering step in the process of ensuring the validity of the invention before money and time are spent to search, prepare and file a patent application with the United States Patent and Trademark Office. These review teams are typically composed of inventors from different technology and business areas. For example, a review team may be comprised of individuals whose backgrounds are in the systems architecture, microchip engineering, user interface design, etc. technology areas. While some review teams are focused on a particular technological area, others have broader expertise in an attempt to cover inventions from unexpected quarters.
Review teams are currently formed around physical and/or organizational constructs, such as a research laboratory and/or line of business, e.g., software, services, etc. These same constructs come into play when a new invention disclosure is routed for evaluation. That is, invention disclosures are often routed to review teams based on physical and/or organizational constructs rather than the expertise of the particular review team.
Routing approaches that rely on physical location or organizational affiliations have drawbacks. Many inventors develop ideas that can come from any technological and business area that are not necessarily aligned to the mission of the inventor's organization. For example, an International Business Machines (IBM) Global Services employee may submit a disclosure related to an advance in microchip technology. If the routing is performed based on organizational constructs, that invention disclosure would end up in an IBM Global Services review team which may lack the necessary expertise for a thorough evaluation. Expertise mismatches may result in the positive evaluation of an invalid invention disclosure due to lack of knowledge about the state of the art and/or the invention's true business value, the negative evaluation of a valid disclosure due to lack of understanding and/or appreciation of the novelty, or the missed opportunity of further exploitation of an invention (beyond a patent application filing) due to its lack of visibility.
An additional problem occurs when similar invention disclosures are submitted by different inventors and are routed to different review teams because of the use of physical location or organizational affiliations. Such instances tend to occur when a new technology/paradigm is introduced, e.g., instant messaging, grid computing, etc. Because inventions that are “in progress” internally do not come up in prior art searches, this sometimes results in duplicates of the same idea being processed simultaneously in the same company at non-trivial cost. In large global enterprises, with broad scope of businesses and technologies, this condition may not be uncommon.
All of these problems translate into a needless expense for the company. Therefore, it would be beneficial to have a system and method for routing invention disclosures to review teams based on the expertise of the review team members.